In a joint statement released Saturday, the United States and China announced that a “consensus” was reached to “substantially reduce” the $370 billion trade imbalance between the two countries.

“There was a consensus on taking effective measures to substantially reduce the United States trade deficit in goods with China,” the joint statement said, adding, “To meet the growing consumption needs of the Chinese people and the need for high-quality economic development, China will significantly increase purchases of United States goods and services.”

JUST IN: In joint statement with the US, China says it will “significantly increase purchases of United States goods and services” to “help support growth and employment in the United States.”http://CNBC.com

“The statement concluded joint talks on Thursday and Friday between the two countries, which included several U.S. cabinet secretaries and China’s State Council Vice Premier Liu He,” reports Channel NewsAsia.

TUSCALOOSA, AL (The Tuscaloosa News) – A judge has increased the bond of an undocumented immigrant accused of raping a 10-year-old girl.

Juan Vazquez Cornelio, 38, has been held on $60,000 bond since his arrest on March 16. Tuscaloosa County District Court Jude Joanne Jannik raised his bond to $500,000 after a hearing Monday morning.

He would be required to pay cash in order to make bond.

Cornelio is accused of sexually assault the girl at a location on Rice Mine Road earlier this month. She was treated at Children’s of Alabama hospital in Birmingham.

The Tuscaloosa County District Attorney’s office requested the bond increase, saying that if released on $60,000, Cornelio could be deported and would be unlikely to show up for further court proceedings.

Tuscaloosa County Assistant District Attorney Loren Rafferty asked the judge to increase the bond, saying “the only way to assure the defendant’s continued appearance in and proper resolution of this case is to have the court set an appropriate bond in this case.”

Defense attorney Eric Snow argued that the $60,000 bond was adequate.

“There has not been a showing that the defendant is a danger to the community, has made threats of any type, was not cooperative with law enforcement, or in any other way demonstrated actions that would require such a deviation from the listed bond schedule…,” he wrote in a motion submitted to...

Following two weeks of mounting speculation over the FBI's so-called "mole" inside the Trump campaign, the New York Times and Washington Post published separate accounts on Friday detailing the infiltration of the Trump campaign - a scheme revealed in a Wednesday report by the New York Times in which "at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos." The Wednesday report also disclosed the existence of "Operation Crossfire Hurricane" - the FBI's code name for their early Trump-Russia investigation.

Thanks to Friday's carefully crafted deep-state disclosures by WaPo and the Times, along with actual reporting by the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross, we now know it wasn't a mole at all - but 73-year-old University of Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, a US citizen, political veteran and longtime US Intelligence asset enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election.

While Halper's name remains undisclosed by the NYT and WaPo, a quick read of all three articles linked above makes it abundantly clear that the "American academic who teaches in Britain" described by The Times, who "met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos" is none other than Halper - whose meetings with the Trump aides were revealed by the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross in late March.

Two months before the 2016 election, George Papadopoulos received a strange request for a meeting in London, one of several the young Trump adviser would be offered — and he would accept — during the presidential campaign.

The meeting request, which has not been reported until now, came from Stefan Halper, a foreign policy expert and Cambridge professor with connections to the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6.

Halper’s September 2016 outreach to Papadopoulos wasn’t his only contact with Trump campaign members. The 73-year-old professor, a veteran of three Republican administrations, met with two other campaign advisers, The Daily Caller News Foundation learned. -Daily Caller

These contacts are notable, as Halper's infiltration of the Trump campaign corresponds with the two of the four targets of the FBI's Operation Crossfire Hurricane - in which the agency sent counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and others to a London meeting in the Summer of 2016 with former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer - who says Papadopoulos drunkenly admitted to knowing that the Russians had Hillary Clinton's emails.George

Interestingly Downer - the source of the Papadopoulos intel, and Halper - who conned Papadopoulos months later, are linked through UK-based Haklyut & Co. an opposition research and intelligence firm - founded by three former British intelligence operatives in 1995 to provide the kind of otherwise inaccessible research for which select governments and Fortune 500 corporations pay huge sums.

Downer - a good friend of the Clintons, has been on their advisory board for a decade, while Halper is connected to Hakluyt through Director of U.S. operations Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has...

Several elementary school children were threatened by a boy with a migrant background in Ried, Austria. The case went public after Austria’s OÖN received a letter from worried parents about the incident.The Turkish boy, who is only nine years old, threatened other school children with a knife and said that it is his job to kill people and god had commanded him to do so.

Alois Ebner, spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office Ried, confirms the incident to OÖN. It occurred in mid-April. However, the incident did not happen at school, but on a footpath in the city of Ried.

According to Ebner, the only nine-year-old boy with Turkish roots said he found an old kitchen knife on his way home from school. He admits that he threatened a somewhat older child, saying that he had been teased, but that he “did not mean the threat seriously.”

The school of threatened children confirmed the incident on OÖN request. Director Irene Horn says that the endangered children from the first NMS class have confided in a teacher and that they have handed over the knife they took after the incident.

A punishment does not threaten the nine-year-old. The final report is nearing completion and when the boy is not convicted, the case will be closed. The investigation has not revealed that he was instigated by his parents to...

Police body camera footage has revealed another side to a story told by a South Carolina woman claiming to have underwent a “traumatic experience” following a routine traffic stop.

In a Facebook Live video posted on April 27 Dawn Hilton-Williams claimed to be a victim of racism after she was pulled over by a Brunswick County Sheriff’s sergeant on Route 58 in Virginia going 70 mph in a 55. Hilton-Williams was asked to sign a summons confirming she would appear in court or pre-pay a traffic ticket, reports Fox News.

“It doesn’t matter how polite you are, it’s all sick, crazy bullying and the police are ridiculous,” Hilton-Williams said, inexplicably emotional after the routine stop as she wiped tears away during the 11 minute video.

But body camera footage released by the sheriff’s office last week tells a different story. The video shows Hilton-Williams spring to berating the officer as she demanded to know where the 55mph signs were.

“You didn’t give me a warning, you gave me an actual ticket?” she asks the traffic cop.

“Yeah, no warnings today ma’am,” the officer replied.

The situation escalates when Hilton-William will not sign the summons.

“What you are signing here is a promise to come to court or a promise to pre-pay. It’s not an admission of guilt. It’s only a promise to me that you’re gonna get it taken care of by either coming to court or pre-paying it,” the officer politely explained.

“If you refuse to sign the summons, at this point, I’m going to have to get you outside of this car, I’m going to place you under arrest and take you in front of a magistrate. I will get your vehicle towed and go from there.”

Hilton-Williams then attempted to stop the conversation to take a phone call.

“You do not have a choice but to sign this summons,” he tells her, ignoring the interruption. “So once again you’re signing right there so thank you, I knew you were going to sign it. Thank you very much.”

Hilton-Williams eventually responded to the standard request by signing the paper and promptly took to Facebook to bad mouth the officer.

“I have had a traumatic experience and I want the people who are not African-American who know me to really get where we are coming from,” she told her followers. “When I saw the police pull up behind me, the state trooper, I was immediately afraid.”

“This is the area I’m in,” she says as she revealed the rural road on camera. “In the middle of, this kind of stuff. This is where I am, so it’s not like I’m not afraid, because this is where we got lynched.”

She continues, “Do any of my white friends…feel like that when they get pulled over?…Are they afraid that they are never going to come home or see anybody else because police are at the door saying [I’m going] to pull you out of the car? Why do only African-Americans and people of color know what I’m going through right now?”

Hilton-Williams wraps up the rant with saying “when you’re African-American and you get pulled out of the car you get shot, or you get tased, or you get Sandra Bland, if you are a woman.”

Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts told WVTR he was looking into the claim after the video went viral and the Sheriff’s Department received several complaint calls.

“I don’t know what she has been through and I don’t know her life history, what I worry about is this kind of thing will inflame situations where you see cops in other states have been executed while they were just eating lunch,” Roberts warned.

Roberts then told reporters that he watched the footage and the officer did nothing unusual or wrong.

“This video here, there are things I could go over and critique the officer on, it’s not racial things, it’s not hate things. Certainly some etiquette or verbal judo that could be fixed and improved upon,” he said to WTVR. “What’s ultimately going to be accomplished, it’s not going to make the ticket go away, it’s not going to solve anything. It’s only causing more problems.”

The New York Times earlier this week released a story about the origins of the spying on President Trump’s campaign. The DoJ/FBI dubbed it, ‘Crossfire Hurricane‘. The Times admitted the former administration did spy on the Trump campaign but at the same time claim it was unimportant.

The F.B.I. obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said. That has become a politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the F.B.I. was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials.

Looking back, some at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. now believe that agents could have been more aggressive. They ultimately interviewed Mr. Papadopoulos in January 2017 and managed to keep it a secret, suggesting they could have done so much earlier.

What is important, they claim, is how Republicans are trying to get the information so they can out the spy. Meanwhile, it is they who are leaking information about the spy – selectively – to get ahead of it.

IT’S A ‘GOOD THING’

According to James Clapper, Obama’s DNI, spying was “a good thing” because the Russians were undermining our entire system.

Where was the spy in Hillary’s campaign? Oh, right, there wasn’t one.

When in U.S. history was it a good thing for the one party to spy on their opponent? This is Third World politics. What is worse is it is passing almost without comment.

In the past, this would be a huge scandal but the media is part of the corruption and Americans are not getting the true story.

We cannot have the U.S. government interfering in an election. We cannot have this again

DOJ/FBI LEAKS — THEY CLAIM REPUBLICANS WILL LEAK

The DoJ/FBI continually complains that the Congress will leak it if they find out who the source/spy is, yet they are the ones leaking the information about the spy. Most of us can guess who the spy is based on the information they released — it’s likely Stefan Halper.

Audaciously, the DoJ/FBI are telling the public that Republicans want to endanger national security and produce the name.

What people need to understand and accept is these people are leftist revolutionaries with no morals, just an ideology. They’re capable of anything and are undermining our...

A Wednesday piece by The New York Times which details the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign may have revealed more than intended, at least if a Wall Street Journal reporter who has covered the surveillance previously is correct.

The Journal’s Kimberley Strassel has written about the investigation in the past. In a piece last week, she posited that the FBI may have used a mole in the Trump campaign, particularly given the Department of Justice’s reluctance to turn over information about the informant to congressional investigators.

The Times piece revealed more details about the Trump campaign surveillance operation — called “Crossfire Hurricane” in reference to the Rolling Stones song “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” — and just how extensive it was.

While the tenor of the article, which was written by Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos, is overwhelmingly favorable to the FBI and dismisses any claims that the surveillance was politically motivated ,(“I never saw anything that resembled a witch hunt or suggested that the bureau’s approach to the investigation was politically driven,” one DOJ official is quoted as saying) there were a few things buried deep in there that specifically caught Strassel’s attention.

In a tweetstorm Wednesday evening, Strassel noted key problems in The Times’ narrative, particularly when the story appeared and significant facts that they glossed over.

Strassel first argued that the article was a calculated leak of sorts in an effort to get out ahead of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and the information that he’s gathering and releasing regarding the FBI’s sources on the Trump investigation.

1. So a few important points on that new NYT "Hurricane Crossfire" piece. A story that, BTW, all of us following this knew had to be coming. This is DOJ/FBI leakers' attempt to get in front of the facts Nunes is forcing out, to make it not sound so bad. Don't buy it. It's bad.

“Street gang MS-13, infamous for vicious machete killings, is first to be declared an international criminal group.” That’s a headline from the Daily Mail in 2012.

“The gratuitous acts of violence these now-convicted gang members committed were intended to spread fear.” That’s a description from acting U.S. Attorney John Horn about a 2015 murder conviction in Georgia.

On Wednesday, President Trump was speaking as part of his roundtable discussion on California’s sanctuary laws and was asked about MS-13. His response set off a firestorm.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims brought up the gang and her department’s ability to combat them: “There could be an MS-13 member that I know about” and yet can’t report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The controversy blew up when people and news organizations used the quote or clip without the context of Mims’ question. Trump wasn’t calling all illegal immigrants animals. One widely favored and retweeted response referred to Trump’s remark as the “language of ethnic cleansing.”

Quickly, though, people on the right (and some journalists) corrected the record. That it was about MS-13 was reported more widely. Even so, many on the left, including notably House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, simply recalibrated to defend the humanity of the gang itself.

“Does he not believe in the spark of divinity, the dignity and worth of every person?” Pelosi asked.

The question is whether it was fair or wise of Trump to call MS-13 animals, and whether it’s a morally objectionable statement overall.

The American Heritage Dictionary third definition of “animal” is “a person who behaves in a bestial or brutish manner.” By that definition, “animal” isn’t nearly strong enough.

Today's news spat over MS-13 is part of a longer-running drama. Since Trump took office, there has been an effort to downplay the gang’s significance even as Trump has rhetorically raised its profile.

He's not the only president to do so. In 2012 — you know, under President Obama — MS-13 was formally designated a transnational criminal organization by the Treasury Department. At the time, this was characterized approvingly as a “crackdown” by the Obama administration.

MS-13 (or Mara Salvatrucha), a primarily El Salvador-based gang that started in Los Angeles, was believed to have about 10,000 members across the country at that time and Central America. They were known for hacking enemies to death, executing people in broad daylight in view of witnesses, and fatally beating people with...

TUCSON, Ariz. – Ajo Station Border Patrol agents apprehended seven men Friday morning northwest of Lukeville and later identified one of them as a 22-year-old “Mara Salvatrucha” (MS-13) gang member from Honduras.

Agents patrolling a remote mountain trail encountered and arrested the group for entering the country illegally and subsequently transported them to the Ajo Station for further processing.

During processing, agents identified Carlos Ordoñez-Rodriguez as a member of the MS-13 street gang, with an extensive criminal history in Colorado, who had been removed from the U.S. in 2017.

Ordoñez will remain in federal custody pending a court disposition for criminal immigration violations. The other men arrested were identified as...